


Time of My Life

by Fonbella



Category: Kingdom Hearts
Genre: Accidental Baby Acquisition, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Developing Relationship, F/M, Teen Pregnancy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-24
Updated: 2014-05-24
Packaged: 2018-01-26 09:02:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,478
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1682603
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fonbella/pseuds/Fonbella
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Apathy was his middle name and she had always been okay with it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Time of My Life

**Author's Note:**

> Done for a [prompt](http://fonbella.tumblr.com/post/76889442910) on my Tumblr.

The first time it happened, Vanitas was at the bus stop, waiting for his ride to arrive so he could finally go home after a tiring day. He had been looking in the direction it would come while occasionally checking his phone. Parties he didn’t want to attend, people he didn’t care about wanting to talk to him. Boring.

It was only a glance, he didn’t even know why he looked in that direction specifically, but he did. Since the bus was definitely not coming soon, he just happened to observe his surroundings and it just so happened he saw a familiar face on the other side of the street. Then again, she did have a pretty vibrant hair color, almost impossible to miss, so that was probably why.

Out of the department store she came, holding something in her arms and stopping for a second at the exit. She was looking at it when a second person came out and stopped by her side. Terra. He never liked her friends much. Ventus was tolerable, but Terra had always been his nemesis, a pain in the ass. And he was there too. By her side, holding two bags in one hand and reaching for whatever was in her arms with his other.

The thing looked suspiciously like a baby, though he couldn’t see from afar and soon they started to move, walking away without even noticing Vanitas had been staring the whole time. But he was probably wrong, _had_  to be wrong. Aqua? A baby? He kept staring even after they had long been out of his sight.

Vanitas missed the bus.

 

* * *

 

The second time wasn’t so accidental. Perhaps he had been paranoid about it. No, not paranoid, just curious, that was a better word for it. Aqua entered the drug store and he just happened to see her coming in, it wasn’t like he was following her or anything. He wasn’t.

But he lost sight of her while pretending not to be following her. Curiosity, nervousness, he didn’t know what moved him, but he started going down all the isles looking for her. Surprisingly for him, it was her who found him first. When he looked around, she was already there, thing in one hand, a basket of products in another.

He locked his stare on hers while continuously repeating to himself _don’t look at the baby, don’t look at the baby, don’t look at the baby_.

He looked at the baby.

Almost instantly she brought the baby even closer to her. It almost seemed like a defense mechanism and it confused him. Despite her actions, a small smile (forced?) appeared on her face.

“Hey.”

Her voice was monotonous. She had never sounded so expressionless before. Not even after they broke up - and they did so in good terms - since they still continued to talk to each other for months. She had never sounded like that, uninterested. As if he was a stranger. The smile on her face obviously just for show.

One day Aqua just disappeared. Then again, maybe he was to blame. She had always been the one to call him. Vanitas never called her, not even when they were dating. After they went their separate ways she still called him. They still went out, watched movies together, talked about each other, how their lives were going. Vanitas still mocked Terra and got an elbow to his ribs every time. She still talked about how silly they were when they started going out and laughed about it. They both did. Except one day she didn’t call back anymore.

She disappeared for six, seven, maybe eight months. He couldn’t remember, a year maybe? And now they were like strangers.

The word sounded bitter and he tried as much as possible not to show it on his face.

“Hey.” He tried, he really did try to look back at her. And he managed for a second before his eyes got dragged back down to look at the mess of baby rolled in cloths on her arms. “He yours?” He pointed with his chin.

Even though he knew the answer already, a part of him wanted her to laugh it off and say things like  _Who, me? No, no. It’s my aunt’s, I’m just taking him for a walk with me_.

“She.” Correction. She. “Yes, I mean” she looked at the baby and took a step ahead in his direction. “Her name’s Kairi.”

The smile on her face now was truly genuine. This baby who had been just born was less of a stranger to her than her four year old boyfriend and six years old friend. Ex-boyfriend, but that’s not the point. Apparently ex-friend too.

“Can I look?”

“Sure.” Cold. Ouch.

He took three steps ahead. Aqua was still as tall as she had always been, but the baby was just on the right position for him to take a good look at it. She didn’t look young enough to be a newborn, but didn’t look old enough to be a year old yet. Maybe five, six months old. Adding the nine months for the pregnancy… It was more or less when they broke up. It was obviously his. So painfully obvious he nearly gasped and walked back, but he was a good enough actor to let a small sarcastic smile out instead.

“Wasted no time fooling with Terra after I left, huh?”

Well, that came out horribly. Aqua would probably slap him. He wanted to slap himself.

But then she laughed. A genuine, heartfelt giggle.

“I guess.” No, she wasn’t supposed to say that. She was supposed to get angry at him and tell him it was obviously his and he was a bad person for leaving her to take care of it alone. Why was she laughing?

The baby moved her tiny arm around and this time he _did_ step back.

“Oh sorry, I gotta go.” That was Aqua, but she said exactly what he had been thinking about saying. “See you later Vanitas.”

She couldn’t wave with both arms occupied, so she just left instead.

“Bye.”

 

* * *

 

It had only been a week since he met her at the drugstore, but he couldn’t stop replaying the encounter on his head. He stopped following her after that (okay, so maybe he _was_ following her, so what?), but it still bugged him and he didn’t know why.

After pacing on his tiny apartment for what seemed like forever, he finally decided to do the one thing he had never done before.

He called her.

 

* * *

 

Terra was absolutely smug about the baby. He carried it around, toyed with her, made her do these cute, annoying baby giggle things that he absolutely despised. Worst of all, the baby loved the stupid guy. Vanitas decided to take back what he thought before, there was no way that was his child if she loved Terra so much.

Vanitas and Aqua stood far away from the scene as Terra walked with the baby window shopping in the first district and showed her things she obviously had no idea what they were. When a toy store came up, Terra missed no time stepping in, after gently shouting he’d be right back.

Worst of all, Aqua was smiling at the scene.

After Terra and the baby were gone, Vanitas remembered he was with her and dread took over him. What was he supposed to talk about now?

“I was so glad when you called.”

Or maybe he could just wait for her to talk, that worked as well.

“No big deal.” He shrugged it off.

Aqua shook her head gently, the smile never leaving her face. At least it was back there. For him, at least. Apparently it had never left for anyone else.

“But it is, you never called me before. That was a first. I was surprised, but happy.”

He had the worst excuse ever. He had pretended he had called her just to chat, joked about how they never see each other anymore and suggested they should go shopping Christmas presents together. Of course she would never accept it. She would want to have a quiet christmas party with Terra and the baby and he had no place in it, why did he even suggest such a thing?

Yet they were here, shopping for Christmas gifts.

“I never noticed.”

“You never do.” She giggled.

A memory from when they broke up came rushing to his mind. It had been unlike other couples, at least not like most of the break ups they show on TV. There had been no shouting, no one being tossed out of the house, no fighting. She had just merely suggested the idea that maybe they should stop, as if it was something casual. He had, surprisingly, said a meek _ok_. Nothing changed much after that, only the fact that they didn’t kiss of had sex anymore and that had been it and they were both fine with it. Happy, even.

But one thing she said reminded him of that time and something she said about how he never really paid much attention to things. Why did he remember about it now?

“Is that why you disappeared on me?” He and his big mouth.

“Hm?”

“I never pay attention to things. I could barely take care of myself, let alone a baby. Because I wasn’t going to mind it.”

Implied in it: Aqua broke up with him because she found out she was pregnant and made it seem casual so as not to cast suspicion. He was dumb enough to fall for it. Or rather, he was a kid who thought he knew better and always took everything for granted. That’s why he never noticed it. That’s why he never cared. That’s why he was so dumb before. That’s also why Aqua, as a smart person, got rid of him because she knew he would never be able to take care of the baby. If anything, it would be as if he wasn’t even there. So better to cut him off from the start. She hanged out with him to keep up the idea that nothing had changed and once her belly started growing she suddenly disappeared for all those months.

That got him thinking, if he hadn’t looked in her direction that first time on the bus stop, would she have hidden the baby from him all this time? As much as possible? Forever?

She was smart, he knew she was, and he knew she was thinking about what he said and everything he had meant by it.

Then, in an unexpected move, she ruffled his hair.

“Silly. Kairi isn’t yours. Terra is the father, remember?”

He wanted her to say yes. To admit it. He would have been okay with it because he knew it was the truth. Instead, the answer she gave him annoyed him to no end.

 

* * *

 

How did Terra put it? It wasn't a proper Christmas party unless it was uncle Ansem's Christmas party. That was definitely what he said all those years ago when Vanitas barely even knew Aqua. The man in question was Aqua's uncle only, but everyone called him like that. The name got stuck after a while.

Uncle Ansem lived in a big mansion down the last road in Radiant Garden. Apparently it was just Aqua and Terra at first. After a while, Ventus joined the team when they met in school and became best friends. The following year marked the biggest change, however. Not only did Vanitas get added to uncle Ansem's Christmas party through Ventus, but also the man had finally started his own research center and the place was crawling with all kinds of mad scientists. Literally. Even was the living proof of this statement.

He never got close to Ventus the way the other two did and he never liked Terra to begin with, but he had a pretty decent start with Aqua for some reason and before he knew it, the only reason he bothered coming every year was because of her (and Dilan's awesome cooking skill, but he never said that). Last year was supposedly the last of his time with the group since he wasn't dating Aqua anymore and it wasn't long after the holidays that she was suddenly gone, meaning he had no reason to return anymore. He was okay with it, he had planned to spend the evening in his comfortable place, eat a pre cooked meal, buy panettone. It wasn't the most exciting thing in his life but the thought of spending a calm night by himself was appealing enough that he was looking forward to it.

But then Aqua was back, carrying a baby and their relationship wasn't as bad as their first encounter at the drugstore, so she asked if he wanted to come to uncle Ansem's Christmas party this year too. In his defense he did want to forge an excuse not to go, but in the end she convinced him anyway.

He was nervous. Did everyone know about the baby? Did they know Vanitas was the father or did Aqua also made them believe Terra was? What if they judged him? Thought he was a good for nothing who hit and ran from his responsibilities as the father? Sure, he didn't know he was a father, but did they know that too?

Apparently all his worries were meaningless. The first thing that happened once he stepped in was Braig pulled him close by resting his arm on his shoulder and exclaimed _Hey kiddo, long time no see! Where the hell have you been?_ and from there everything was if he had never left the group in the first place.

Kairi was the big attraction of the night. Aeleus and Dilan practically had to fight each other to see who would carry her first. Aqua found the whole thing amusing, Ventus was more interested in listening to all the big discoveries uncle Ansem had made during the past year and Terra had to shield the little girl from the big guys. The whole scene... Made him envious. Only by a little bit, but still.

Naturally, Kairi didn't remain awake for too long. Aqua excused herself a little after 10 PM to one of the guest rooms while the others waited for the clock to reach midnight. Without her around, Vanitas wondered why he remained. He wanted to go down the halls, follow her, enter the room and ask her how to take care of the baby, how to put her to sleep properly. He wanted to try it. But the thought that everyone would notice he was missing along with the girls stopped him from moving.

Ventus, at least, was smart enough to notice and keep him company for the night. It was the one thing about him that made Vanitas tolerate the boy: he knew when to stay silent and when to enjoy their company without speaking up unnecessary thoughts.

 

* * *

 

Vanitas had the misfortune to meet Terra at the market he used to go next to his house. He groaned audibly when Terra didn't let him turn around and instead held his arm.

"What? What do you want?"

Terra released him.

"I want to talk to you."

Great. Just great.

 

* * *

 

Vanitas dropped the bags of food on top of his table. He took the contents out slowly, too busy thinking about his conversation with Terra to pay any attention to what he was doing.

Terra didn't say anything he already didn't know. Instead, he only confirmed Vanitas’ suspicions. Kairi wasn't Terra's ( _We’ve never been together, she’s only a good friend to me_ , he had said) and it had been Aqua's wish that he pretended Kairi was in fact his daughter. Then of course, came the part Vanitas rolled his eyes at: Terra felt guilty about it. _So what do you want me to do? Confront her about it? Is that what this is all about?_ Vanitas couldn't understand why Terra was even telling him all this. Why here, why now?

 _Do what you want_ , Terra replied. _Just know that if you hurt Aqua or Kairi in any way, I'll come back for you_.

(Like Vanitas was so very scared of him.)

Confront her… Now there was a good idea. Yes, he was going to do this. He could do this!

With that thought in mind, he pushed the empty bags aside and reached for his phone.

 

* * *

 

Vanitas decided not to confront her.

It was a dumb idea in the first place. What would he gain from it? Aqua being mad at him, for one. Perhaps disappearing on him again. No, he had to be more subtle about it (him? subtle?). So when she answered on the other side of the line, instead he asked to meet her. Again.

She laughed, said she would love to. _Meet me at uncle Ansem’s for dinner. I have to go back there after work anyway._

 _Wait, what?_ Vanitas replied. _You’re working? Who the hell is taking care of Kairi? Don’t tell me it’s Terra_.

 _No silly, it’s uncle Ansem_. She then proceeded to explain how the old man had been taking care of her ever since Aqua returned to work. It was a hard thing to grasp since she worked for him in his research center and she could easily ask for an extension to her parental leave. _I didn’t want to. I’m not gonna use the fact that my boss is my uncle for that._

Sometimes he thought she was way too nice. Then again, that was probably why he fell for her naivete in the first place.

 

* * *

 

Somehow it ended with Aqua suggesting he waited there for her. It implied seeing Kairi before she left work and he wasn’t sure how he felt about it without her around. Still, he did as he was told and went to the mansion. Uncle Ansem didn’t seem very surprised by him showing up and already greeted him at the door with the baby in his hands.

Naturally - and he saw it coming - uncle Ansem arranged an excuse about cooking something for dinner and asked him to take care of her. Apparently it wasn’t awkward enough that he was here, because having alone time with the baby… didn’t appeal to him, at all.

But what was he to do? As uncle Ansem retreated to the kitchen with a very visible smile on his face, Vanitas saw himself sitting on the ground looking at the crumpled baby on the floor in front of him. Two thick sheets protected her from the cold ground as she waved her arms and tiny legs in the air.

At first he simply stared at her, observing what she was gonna do next and listening to her weird baby noises. Once he got bored, he raised a hand in her direction and pointed his index finger at her. He approached, slowly, and watched surprised as her entire left hand gripped his finger, so tight he had to pull it back.

“Ouch! What was that for?”

“Having problems?”

He turned around to find Aqua watching from the entrance door, leaning against the door frame and arms crossed. The smile on her face seemed to tell him she had been watching for a while. What a troublesome girl.

“She nearly tore my finger off!”

“Of course she did.” Aqua walked in his direction and crouched down to lift the baby up. “C’mon, let’s eat. I’m starving.”

 

* * *

 

There was something incredibly soothing about watching Aqua feed the baby. Maybe he shouldn't be watching, maybe it made her uncomfortable, but she didn't say or show it in any way and he wasn't about to go away before he talked to her.

He found out uncle Ansem was more of an overprotective mother than Aqua and Terra together. He rebuilt an entire living room in one of the many rooms in his mansion just for the baby, even though Aqua didn't even live here anymore (or maybe she did, he only remembered her old tiny apartment where he would usually spend his nights with her). The walls were painted with baby pink, blue and white. The light was mostly dim from the only lampshade on a nightstand by her armchair. There was only one window in the room (and it was tall enough that even after Kairi was able to walk she wouldn't be able to reach it). There was a crib, a couch and a very comfortable armchair where Aqua sat at the moment as she breastfed Kairi. And all of it, the entire scene, the entire mood painted on this sole room was enough to make Vanitas want to close his eyes and sleep like a baby.

He watched as Kairi quieted down enough as she was being fed, it almost looked as if she had fallen asleep. Aqua held her head in a way that her thumb caressed the baby's thin, short hair back and forth. Just watching it felt so relaxing. It reminded him of his own childhood, when his mother would caress the top of his head whenever he did something good like finishing his homework on time (rare occurrence) or ate all his food (rarer).

It even reminded him of his time with Aqua. The way she had always been much taller than him and she would sometimes sit on her couch and pull him closer, tucking his head under her chin and gently caress his hair. Sometimes before heading to bed, on the nights where they just wanted to sleep and not do anything else, she would trail the back of her hand over his head, slightly pushing his hair back in place after taking a long, warm shower. And then he would almost always fall asleep instantly afterwards, just like that.

Vanitas woke up from his reverie when he noticed Aqua getting up and walking to the crib, putting Kairi down gently to sleep at last. For a second, as he stared at her back for longer than he should have, he couldn’t help but wonder if this would be a recurring scene he would witness every day if he were still together with her. Would it?

Then, no louder than a whisper, she asked him as she turned around:

“So, what did you want to talk about?”

Right, so what _did_ he want to talk about? The words escaped his mind and he didn’t even notice it.

She looked down at him as he sat there, meekly looking at her from his position on the couch. They stayed like that for a long time. She gave him all the time in the world until he was ready to speak. The funny part was that he wasn’t sure if he would ever be. Talking to her had always been a big issue for him.

Well, not just her, but talking to people in general. In fact, he had always been more open with her. Possibly also another reason why he fell for her.

There were many reasons, right?

 

* * *

 

Vanitas wasn’t particularly fond of his apartment, the same way he wasn’t attached to a lot of things in his life the way other people were. Some people liked a certain brand of shampoo. Some liked their coffee a certain way. He never cared much about any of that. Once he imagined a huge earthquake shaking the city and his apartment getting destroyed. He wasn’t sure whether it was a good thing or not that if that ever happened, he would just head down the street to uncle Ansem’s mansion or anywhere else as if it were any normal day. Aqua never said anything to him about it, but he knew she thought it was a weird thing.

However, there was one thing he absolutely adored and that was his bed. If the world were to end tomorrow, the one thing he would miss the most would be his comfortable mattress, the way the sheets felt on top of him and the way his head fit oh-so-perfectly on the pillow. Most of the time he spent at home was spent lying across his bed doing absolutely nothing. His prefered time of the day? The time to head to bed and sleep without a care in the world.

That day, once he finally got home, he took a shower and quietly threw himself on top of the bed, letting his arms fall wide open. He wasn’t sure how long he stayed like that, only that once he finally fished his phone from the pocket of his jeans, the clock told him it was way past midnight. Without thinking, he moved his fingers through the screen and opened his messages, reading the one Aqua sent him when he got home earlier.

_I missed you. Thanks for coming._

On the top of the the list, another one sent roughly a minute after that read:

_Thanks for calling._

The words rang in his head. _Thanks for calling._ What a weird thing to thank another person for, yet it fit so well between them. She was always the kind of person to thank him for something he did that made her happy.

If only he’d been brighter before, he’d have called her many times in the past.

Terra’s words popped up in his mind right after that. _Do what you want, just know that if you hurt Aqua or Kairi in any way, I'll come back for you._ What an ass! Just because he was apathetic didn’t mean he would ever try to hurt Aqua. Or Kairi.

If anything the only person he wanted to hurt was Terra by connecting his fist to his face accidentally _Oops, my hand slipped_. What a moron! Pretending to be Kairi’s father in public and getting near Aqua or Kairi in front of him. Just the thought made his head spin. To think that all this time Terra was helping her raise the baby and Vanitas just wasn’t in the picture…

Of course, he understood it now. It was a matter of effort. Was he willing to make Aqua fall in love with him again? Was he willing to return to her _and_ to Kairi? The answer was obvious.

Vanitas turned on his side, reading the message again. After thinking about it for a while, he held his phone with both hands and started a reply.

Content with himself, he put the phone away on the nightstand and pulled the sheets over himself. Slowly, sleep came around and he let his eyelids close.

_I’ll call you again if you want to._

Implied in it: _please let me be a part of your life again_.

 

* * *

 

_I would love to receive your calls!_

_PS: Kairi says she would like that too._

Implied in it: _of course._

**Author's Note:**

> Wow okay, so I've only been postponing posting this forever. It was actually finished a while ago but I was nervous about posting it online for one million different reasons that shan't be named OTL. This turned out a lot longer than I anticipated. It wasn't supposed to because it was supposed to be a _drabble_. I was actually going to write a lot more, actually showing their re-developing relationship until Vanitas and Aqua reached the state they were in during their previous relationship but I had to cut it short and hopefully the ending made it look like they'll eventually get there. I have so much to talk about this and [feranelia](http://feranelia.tumblr.com/) knows it but well, nevermind. Hope it was somehow enjoyable.


End file.
